Marvel Ultimate Alliance
© Activision
Platform: PSP / PC (Also on the GBA – PS2 – PS3 – X-Box – X-Box 360 – Wii)
ESRB: T
Genre: Action RPG
Players: 1-4
Online: Yes
Developer: Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Suggested Retail: $59.99
Graphics: B
Sound: B
Gameplay: A-
Replay: B+
Fun Factor: A-
Buy it now!
"Marvel Ultimate Alliance"
By: CAPTAIN GORDON EDWARDDate: Monday, November 27, 2006
The X-Men Legends series has been around for quite some time. Of course it was built involving the characters of X-Men, whom occupy the Marvel universe. With two games all ready completed, featuring the main villains Magneto and Apocalypse, it was difficult to see where the series was going to go next, in spite of the ending of the second game. So instead of just allowing the select few heroes and villains of the X-Men to take centre stage, Activision decided that they might as well think big or go home. Indeed they did think big, much bigger than the X-Men at least. They thought about the entire Marvel universe, so that makes a fan like me a little gitty.
As comic book fans might know, it features Dr. Doom as the top villain. Known for creating a group of villains to follow him, just ask the country he dictates over, he decided that he would need much more than them to accomplish the goal of ruling the world. Rather than creating a group of robots to take over, like the Sentinels attempted to do in the previous game, he decided to take living counter-parts, blind them with illusions of grandeur, and have them help him on his quest. With the evil group created, now the super heroes of the world will battle directly against the new Masters of Evil.
Graphically the game is quite similar to the previous ones, which is based upon cell shading. This style works quite well for the characters, but more importantly for the environments. I will openly praise the large worlds that they let you play through on each level, as they are very intricate and look great. It is nice just to walk through the levels and seeing how each of them is tied in artistically. On the PSP specifically though, they look a little weak, especially when you compare them against the computer version. There was also a minor problem with the camera, which would happen every few minutes, where it would not line up properly with where you were going. Acting as if it were a living character it would occasionally it hooked in a corner, where you would have to wander back and free it by walking around. It was quite irritating, and it even lead to one of my characters dying.
Akin to the previous X-Men Legends games, you have your standard dungeon crawler-esc, button mashing, top down game. With four players on the map at a time, you will have plenty of support as you roam through the different levels, trying to solve the problem at the heart of the game. Along the way you will battle a large cast of enemies, from peons to Doom bots, and occasionally you will run up against one of the boss enemies. There are several boss enemies on every level just to spice things up, I suppose since the general enemies are fairly dismissible.
Using combos you can destroy your opponents, or you can get by just by hitting your main attack button. After your characters kill enemies you will gain much needed experience, and after you gain enough experience, you will gain levels to make your puppets stronger. A stronger character allows for more health, but it also allows you to upgrade their special abilities. Special abilities use up a bit of the meta-human / mutant power bar that each of character have, but it will quickly refill itself after you destroy the current enemy.
What makes this game different from all of the games before it though, is the amount of characters that you have available to play. It teams up most of the power players of the Marvel realm, though not all of them. While there are a lot of playable characters introduced, there are plenty of characters that are not. Many people of the Marvel realm show up solely as non-playable characters that you can talk to at the very least. There are also bonus characters that you can unlock, though some will depend on which platform of the game you purchased, while others will depend on if you pre-ordered it or not. In the end, the main stars of the universe are playable, with a few lower levelled flunkies thrown into the mix for good measure.
The game also offers multiplayer options, which I strongly recommend that you use. Not only is it much more enjoyable when you play with friends, but your teammates intelligence will skyrocket. I am not saying that the computer playing your team is totally inept, but for some odd reason Spiderman stood on a patch of fire for about 30 seconds and yelled for help, while the rest of the team were walking away from him. On the plus side, there are a few modes that you can tell your teammates to work as, but mainly aggressive will be the one to use, since it keeps them moving forward. I suppose Spiderman was stuck on the “Sit around on fire” mode that is generally reserved for the Human Torch.
In the end, the game is as fun as it could have been. There were a few let downs, like where some environments were not as destructible as the previous games were, but overall it is still a fun experience. While they did add a large cast of characters, over twenty playable, there are plenty that you will not use since they are quite inferior. This was the case in the previous games, so I think that they should have balanced the field a bit more to allow for things to become level. I am not saying that the lack of balance ruins the game, since it is still very fun, but it feels like I have played this game before. While I love the fact that they included Arcade and his Murderworld, the game follows up with the same old adventure of saving the world. All and all, Captain Gordon gives Marvel Ultimate Alliance a B+.
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? CaptainGordonEdward@Gmail.com
